History

Issue #8 of Socialist Alternative has been published. Includes articles on the housing crisis, stopping the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the fight for $15, women fight back, Canada today, news from around the world and more. If you would like to order copy(ies) contact: contact@socialistalternative.ca A pdf is available here.

On 15 January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the finest brains of the German working class and its most heroic figures, were brutally murdered by the bloodthirsty, defeated German military, backed to the hilt by the cowardly social-democratic leaders Noske and Scheidemann. On this 99th anniversary, we look at Luxemburg’s inspirational, revolutionary legacy. Their […]

Review of Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason, by David Harvey As well as 2017 marking one hundred years since the Russian revolution, it is also 150 years since Karl Marx published the first volume of Capital, a vital analysis of the underlying processes of capitalist production. In this book, David Harvey not […]

A century ago this week, 500,000 workers and soldiers marched through the Russian capital Petrograd, with tens of thousands joining marches in Moscow, Kiev and other cities. The demonstrations on 1 July (18 June according to Russia’s old calendar), called by the pro-government socialist parties who at that time held a majority in the soviets […]

Review of Dan Healey’s book: Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia The socialist October Revolution in 1917 brought about fundamental, thoroughgoing changes in Russian society. Millions of people in the largest country on Earth quickly found themselves far freer than they had ever been under the despotic, anti-Semitic Tsar, the strictures of the church, and the brutality […]

Canada was founded and formed by colonialism, capitalism and corruption countered by resistance. Unlike school history, this genuine history recognizes the central role of struggles of living people that shaped the Canada of today. From the beginnings of what became Canada, the lands and waters were exploited for resources: whale oil, fish from the Grand […]

The month of January 1917 began with more setbacks for the Russian army, as the great imperialist slaughter or World War One drew closer to an end. On the Romanian front troops retreated. Morale in the Russian army was extremely low. One and a half million soldiers deserted in 1916. Over half of the country’s […]

Reprinted from the February 2016 issue of Socialism Today At the beginning of January, the BBC carried a documentary film about the blockade of Leningrad during the second world war – possibly the most tragic siege in history. The programme used eyewitness accounts and historical material to great effect. The message was powerful and moving […]